At least 4,000 pay respects to slain MIT officer

As thousands of police officers from across the country gathered to remember slain police officer Sean Collier, the Hull lieutenant who supervised him was on his motorcycle, having volunteered to escort buses loaded with police officers back and forth to the memorial service.

As thousands of police officers from across the country gathered to remember slain police officer Sean Collier, the Hull lieutenant who supervised him was on his motorcycle, having volunteered to escort buses loaded with police officers back and forth to the memorial service.

“It was a good showing for the kid, as fitting as it should be,” said Lt. Dale Shea, who supervised Collier for at least two summers while he was working in Hull as a seasonal officer. “He was deserving of it. He died in the line of duty.”

Collier was fatally shot on April 18, three days after the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured more than 260. Authorities say he was shot by the suspects in the bombing, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, while responding to a disturbance on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked as a police officer.

Vice President Joe Biden joined students, faculty and staff, and law enforcement officials from across the nation at Briggs Field on Wednesday afternoon for the massive service to honor Collier, who was already well-respected by his colleagues and superiors, and popular with students after little more than a year on campus

“My heart goes out to you,” Biden told Collier’s family. “I hope you find some solace in this time of extreme grief.”

“It infuriates them that we refuse to bend, refuse to change, refuse to bend to fear,” he said of the terrorists that have targeted the country.

Collier’s casket was positioned in front of the thousands who gathered on a bright, sunny spring day. Music of bagpipes echoed across the field, and a large American flag, suspended high above the crowd between two fire department ladder trucks, flapped slowly in the breeze.

Andrew Collier said his 26-year-old brother would have loved everything about the day, including the bagpipes and the American flag.

“He was born to be a police officer and lived out his dream,” Andrew Collier said.

MIT President L. Rafael Reif told those gathered that Collier made countless friends on campus.

“Sean Collier didn’t have a job at MIT; he had a life at MIT,” Reif said. “In just 15 months, he built a life with us. He touched people across our community.”

State Police said between 4,000 and 5,000 attended the service. The line of mourners stretched for about a half-mile at MIT ahead of the service. They had to make their way through tight security, including metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs .

Lt. Shea, who was part of a tactical team in the manhunt for the bombing suspects in Watertown the day after Shea was killed, was not able to attend the service because he was busy escorting those attending it. But he said he was heartened to see so many people, including most of the Hull Police Department, paying respect to an officer he considered a friend.

Page 2 of 2 - “It really hits home,” he said. “It helps the guys who go there to deal with some of the stress of it all.”

Bagpipers played “Amazing Grace” as Collier’s casket was carried from the service, and there was a fly-by with three helicopters over the campus.